


Atanarjuat Runs

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Category: Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)
Genre: Be The First 2020, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Ice, Inuit History, Inuit Mythology - Freeform, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23820295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: Atanarjuat: The Fast Runnerwas the first Inuit film to appear in cinemas. It's a visually stunning rendition of the story of two brothers, Amaqjuaq and Atanarjuat, who challenge the power of an evil shamen in their small community. Tradition and taboo are carefully negotiated, within and without the filmatic structure:Atanarjuatwas filmed on location with an Inuit cast and crew, after extensive consultation with community elders.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13
Collections: Be The First! 2020





	Atanarjuat Runs

Atanarjuat runs, naked. As if he travels over thinning ice, so that water seeps into his weighted footprints and warns of danger, Atanarjuat leaves the scars of his passing on the land. His footprints fill with blood. Running, betrayed by kin and speared by pursuing enemies, he abandons the body of his dead brother in the collapsed huddle of their hunting tent. No grateful hunter will pour cool water in Amaqjuaq's slack mouth in thanks, or position his bloodied head so that rebirth will carry him home. Amaqjuaq's brother runs for his life across the ice, naked and alone.

Atanarjuat runs naked through memories of elders and shamen from Alaska to Greenland. Inuit, weaving string images of animals who give their lives to the hunt, describe mammoths. Only rock tells older stories. Five hundred years ago, the ice melted and the free land, released, rose from the sea. Igloolik Island reclaimed Qikiqtaarjuk; a land bridge linked the two. Running, Atanarjuat fled the smaller island, scrambling over sea ice, leaving his bloody footprints. His story is over five hundred years old. In it there are two brothers, who loved each other. One died. One fled naked across the ice.

Across the topographic songlines of Inuit memory Atanarjuat runs, naked. A traveller's map is drawn on the palm of the hand, describing yesterday's hunt and landscapes seen five hundred years before. There was an island, a spear, two wives. Taboos, transgressed. A shamen possessed by an evil spirit. One brother died. One fled. Atanarjuat runs from history into legend, bridging past and future, a song, a story for children, a delineation of tradition and expectation, a tale for tourists, an image for consumption, a beacon of cutural rebirth, a map of reclaimed territory. His footsteps are weighted with blood.

Atanarjuat runs naked and afraid. Inuit, said a Christian hunter, navigate by fear. How else negotiate the dark ice? Amaqjuaq died in summer, the season of salmon fishing, eggs, and berries. Yet Inuit men and dogs wait breathless for the return of the ice. In the dark, the sea freezes, and the walrus hunts begin. In this lifetime, taboos shatter; the old spirits are starved. No shaman voyage beneath the ice to comb Sedna's long hair and send lice seawards, birthing seals; gunfire and gasoline drive the walrus to quieter seas. The ice, beseiged, melts. Yet Atanarjuat runs still.

Atanarjuat runs naked. He is the fast runner, his brother Amaqjuaq the strong one. They are betrayed by broken taboos and jealousy. Amaqjuaq, speared, dies alone. Atanarjuat lives. In fractured versions of this same story, in the transition between history and myth, Atanarjuat returns. He ambushes and kills his brother's murderers, in an igloo with a floor of ice. Forgiveness is a Christian virtue. Alternatively, in an igloo with a floor of ice, Atanarjuat fights and wins. The shamen is banished, the transgressors cast out. Inuit are their community: to walk alone is to invite death. Atanarjuat, enduring, runs.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not Inuit and don't speak Inuktitut. I've inevitably missed nuance in transcription and description. In working with the film Atanarjuat, therefore, I've been careful to work from interviews with cast members and advisers, and to tell this story from the outside. And I'm profoundly grateful to Gretel Ehrlich, whose _This Cold Heaven_ was an essential resource of Inuit history and culture.


End file.
